Recent Articles from Stewart Schley
Sports biz: Forgive me, for I have sinned
Don’t tell anybody this. But I don’t get ESPN. As in, I don’t have it at my house. As in, if you drop by on Monday evenings in the fall, we won’t be able to watch “Monday Night Football.” (What’s that? No, I completely understand. Sorry you’re not feeling well.) And yet: I am alive […]
Sports biz: The CHL’s next stop: Denver
A Boulder business executive is betting that the Central Hockey League can play in a big-league market. And that market happens to be Denver. Ball Corp. CEO John Hayes is putting up a significant personal investment to reintroduce professional hockey to the Denver Coliseum on the faith that hockey’s popularity among youth will translate to […]
Sports biz: Eat, drink and be Manning
Hey, it’s great to see everybody here in the off-season. If you’d take your seats, please, we can begin. That means you too, Spicy Tamale in a Throwaway Wrapper. OK, great. A few preliminaries: As most of you know, I’m $7 Diet Pepsi with Ice, and as chairman of the Sports Authority Field Food and […]
Sports biz: C-Unit brings buzz to Boulder
Years ago a friend convinced me to go in on season tickets to the University of Colorado men’s basketball program. There was a promising new perimeter guard on the team named Chauncey Billups, and coach Ricardo Patton seemed like he knew what he was doing, so what the hell. We made the trek up U.S. […]
Sports biz: Screen play
If you have a spouse, significant other or disinterested cat around the house who fails to share your passion for sports, you may want to keep this column from view. Because we now have hard statistical evidence you’re not watching enough sports on TV. According to a new report from The Nielsen Co., which tracks […]
Sports biz: Don Elliman’s Olympic questions
Don Elliman has a larger-than-life resume, an impressive pedigree in sports business, and connections everywhere. So when he was named co-chair of an Olympics exploratory committee for Denver last December, it sent a signal that this was a serious effort involving serious players. Elliman, who is executive director of the University of Colorado’s Charles C. […]
Sports biz: …And a Happy Sports Year to All
A tidy symmetry conjoins the year 2011 and Denver Bronco Tim Tebow: Both have passed, and with mixed results. In his second NFL season, Tebow’s throws spanned a sprawling range, from fluttering mishap to unerring arc. In the sports-business world, 2011 was much the same: a mixed bag. At one extreme were soulless reminders that […]
Sports biz: Modern sports mantra
Editor’s note: There’s a puzzle hidden within this column. The first person to e-mail the answer to [email protected] gets mentioned in next month’s issue. Oh, the mediocrity. At the NFL’s midseason point, the Denver Broncos weren’t just average in the standings. The team was average on Twitter. According to an application developed by a Rice […]
Sports biz: Hoop dreams, deferred
To you, me and every other fan who looks forward to the start of a new National Basketball Association season, the NBA’s announcement that it would cancel the first two weeks of the 2011-2012 season was but a minor buzzkill in the full-court press of life. But to people who make a living in and […]
Sports biz: Get yer grill on
We did not know this and you did not know this, but apparently tailgating is now a sport. We know: It seems curious. An activity in which people festoon themselves with face paint and smear hot wing sauce over a good share of their jaws does not seem to meet the basic requirements of sport, […]
Sports biz: Brother, can you spare a luxury suite?
We’re staring down the teeth of a double-dip, the market’s in tatters, and nearly one in 10 adults doesn’t have a job. It’s a great time to be selling sports-venue luxury suites. At least that’s what we’re hearing from Todd Lindenbaum, the president of a 4-year-old LoDo company that’s building a growth business from a […]
Sports biz: Bronco-mania, CSU-style
The strategy adopted by the marketing team at Colorado State University for the upcoming football season is built around good old horse sense. Or in this case, Boise State Broncos sense. Within a realigned Mountain West Conference, an Oct. 15 game at last season’s No. 9-ranked Broncos is the marquee home game for the Rams, […]